In a 4-part series, we delve into how businesses transform into a digital first business, the pitfalls and the key pieces which must be addressed to fully de-risk the journey.
A business’s Digital Transformation goal is to increase the focus on customer interactions and experiences, reduce costs, increase margins and quickly adjust to customer needs and market conditions with new products, technologies and processes. This is a complicated endeavor.
In many cases, a Digital Transformation is equated to mean only updating technology by shifting to cloud and open-source services. By performing the transformation with this approach, the technology could be updated, some costs resolved and customer interactions potentially updated. By focusing only on a single aspect of a business digital transformation most digital transformation efforts fail. A McKinsey study indicates that 70% of digital transformations fail to reach their goals; often due to employing a narrow approach to the digital transform agenda.
For a successful digital transformation of a business, executives and teams need to succeed across four broad categories:
Talent and Commitment
Technology
Data
Process and Culture
When the digital transformation approach losses focus all four parts, the success of a business digital transformation strategy can fail to meet the business’s and the Board’s expectations, leading to disillusionment and a waste of time and money. There are several articles, studies and observations on how a transformation fails when leadership and efforts throughout the entire organization fail to properly prepare, understand and cohesively act to change the business to better serve the customer, the business values and the people.
In this 4-part series, we will discuss some strategies for each category to advance success and de-risk failure for the Digital Transformation agenda to transition the business into a digital first organization. In the next article we will discuss Talent and Commitment.
About the Author
Gregg Fenton is an Executive Director focused on solution capabilities across HP Marin’s Data, Digital Transformation and Legacy Solution domains. Gregg is a Technology and Digital Transformation Leader with over 35 years’ experience in leadership and executive positions across multiple industries at companies such as JP Morgan Chase, Honeywell, Bloomberg, the New York Times, Ericsson, Sperry/Loral, and a startup Whitewater Mobile. Gregg is a thought Leader in the areas of digital transformation, data, analytic solutions, and product development. Gregg holds seven patents across mobile and multimedia messaging and is a member if the IEEE.